{"id":2447950,"date":"2019-08-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-25T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311726"},"modified":"2019-08-26T07:26:34","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T13:26:34","slug":"glenn-k-beaton-a-modest-proposal-to-reduce-the-homeless-by-feeding-them-to-the-needy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/glenn-k-beaton-a-modest-proposal-to-reduce-the-homeless-by-feeding-them-to-the-needy\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenn K. Beaton: A modest proposal* to reduce the homeless by feeding them to the needy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Denver\u2019s goose is cooked, and now the needy need more.<\/p>\n

According to Denver officials, \u201cGeese poop in our parks is one of the biggest complaints we have. It had gotten to the point where the parks were being almost unenjoyable for a lot of people \u2014 that is why we moved forward with this plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK so far, but I\u2019m curious. Why just \u201calmost\u201d? And \u201ca lot of people\u201d suggests a number less than \u201call.\u201d Are there some people who don\u2019t find goose poop unenjoyable?<\/p>\n

I have a friend who thinks goose poop is unenjoyable even on the golf course. Because when he accidentally drops his cigar and goes to pick it up, he sometimes mistakes a goose poop for it, and the goose poop \u2014 though no worse for his health and no worse smelling and tasting than a cigar \u2014 is really hard to keep lit. Sort of like smoked salmon, but more so.<\/p>\n

On to Denver\u2019s plan. It\u2019s to feed the geese to needy families. This is all couched in sanitized bureaucrat-speak, of course. They say they will \u201ccull\u201d the geese by capturing them alive. (Why?) Then they\u2019ll send them off to be \u201cprocessed\u201d and eventually the needy will eat them. I assume that somewhere in that process of being \u201cprocessed\u201d and before getting eaten, the geese get killed and cooked, but the bureaucrats are vague about that step.<\/p>\n

Bureaucratize aside, this is brilliant. For the hunger problem of the needy and the overpopulation problem of the geese, it\u2019s a regular final solution.<\/p>\n

But not quite. Only about 5,000 geese are in Denver, and there\u2019s a zillion needy people. So proposals are on the table to expand the program to mice and infesting insects. Not to be fed, but to eat.<\/p>\n

But mice and insects aren\u2019t very filling. Besides, culling is inhumane, as you would know if you\u2019d ever been culled. In fact, an animal rights group has sued Denver to stop goosing the geese, and I can only imagine the outcry if Denver puts cute and furry critters like mice on the menu.<\/p>\n

I have a modest proposal.<\/p>\n

Note first that goose poop is not the only kind in the Denver parks. Denver recently voted down an initiative to allow homeless vagrants to camp in the parks and on the sidewalks (as if that would solve their problems) but there\u2019s still a lot of illegal camping there.<\/p>\n

Like the geese, those campers can use the can only where they can, and it\u2019s often at their campsites \u2014 the parks and sidewalks. Personally, I find park people poop even more unenjoyable than park goose poop. So does my cigar-chomping friend.<\/p>\n

And note also that Denver has an overabundance of these park pooping people, just as they have an overabundance of park pooping geese. Decades of giving free stuff to vagrants for being vagrants has not reduced their vagrancy. Go figure.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s feed the vagrants to the needy.<\/p>\n

Of course, we\u2019ll be careful in the words we use to describe this plan. We\u2019ll call the menu items \u201cthe homeless\u201d rather than \u201cpeople.\u201d We\u2019ll \u201ccull\u201d the tastiest homeless \u2014 alive, of course, because anything less would be inhumane \u2014 and then send them off to be \u201cprocessed.\u201d Then we\u2019ll place their processed parts in adoptive homes with the hungry needy.<\/p>\n

The beauty of my plan is that it will feed the needy without culling any animals. That will placate the righteous animal rights crowd. And it spruces up the parks, which will thrill the enviros.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, it saves us the time, trouble and expense of treating those persistent problems afflicting the homeless. Why treat addiction, alcoholism, violence, loneliness, criminality, insanity, family breakdown, community estrangement, psychosis, personality disorders, mental illness, schizophrenia, political correctness, social Darwinism, bad choices, bad luck and bad hygiene, when we can just cull?<\/p>\n

This might also be a way to cull the overabundance of Denver Democrats. It\u2019s not unprecedented in that regard. At the sentencing of notorious Colorado cannibal Alferd (that\u2019s how he spelled his name) Packer back in the frontier days, the judge apocryphally declared:<\/p>\n

\u201cStand up yah voracious man-eatin\u2019 sonofabitch and receive yir sintince. When yah came to Hinsdale County, there was siven Dimmycrats. But you, yah et five of \u2018em, goddam yah. I sintince yah t\u2019 be hanged by th\u2019 neck ontil yer dead, dead, dead, as a warnin\u2019 in reducin\u2019 th\u2019 Dimmycratic populayshun of this county. Packer, you Republican cannibal, I would sintince ya ta hell but the statutes forbid it.\u201d<\/p>\n

We can surely do better than five.<\/p>\n

*\u2014Acknowledgements and apologies to Jonathan Swift<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Correspond and subscribe at theAspenbeat@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denver\u2019s goose is cooked, and now the needy need more. According to Denver officials, \u201cGeese poop in our parks is one of the biggest complaints we have. It had gotten to the point where the parks were being almost unenjoyable for a lot of people \u2014 that is why we moved forward with this plan.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 16:17:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447950"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2447981,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447950\/revisions\/2447981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}